Tag: flood

Malaysian villagers escape floods on excavator as 28,000 evacuated

KAMPUNG SEMENTEH, Malaysia (AFP) — Malaysian villagers were evacuated in an excavator while others swam through deep waters Wednesday as the number forced from their homes by floods rose to more than 28,000 with at least four dead. Flooding hits the country’s east coast during the rainy season annually and regularly results in mass evacuations, but people in some areas say this year’s are the worst in decades. The worst-hit state is Pahang, where over […]

Storms help Australia contain UNESCO heritage island fire

BRISBANE, Australia (AFP) — Australian firefighters have managed to control a bushfire that burned more than half of the UNESCO world heritage-listed Fraser Island, around two months after a suspected illegal campfire sparked the blaze. The fire on the world’s largest sand island, off Australia’s east coast, destroyed large swathes of the isle’s forests before heavy downpours arrived over the weekend. “With the help of welcome rainfall and a massive response from crews, the fire […]

Heavy rains kill five in Colombia, six missing

BOGOTA, Colombia (AFP) — Floods caused by a particularly intense rainy season have killed at least five people and left six others missing in northwestern Colombia, authorities said Wednesday. A ravine near the city of Cucuta had overflowed and caused flooding “that devastated everything in its path,” the South American country’s disaster risk agency said. More than 200 nearby homes, mostly in poor neighborhoods, were damaged. The flooding brings the death toll from more than […]

Floods kill 111 in central Vietnam, Storm Saudel on the way

HANOI, Vietnam (AFP) — More than 100 people have died and 20 others are missing in central Vietnam following weeks of severe flooding and landslides, authorities said Wednesday, as the country braced for yet another storm this weekend. About 178,000 homes have been submerged by floodwaters, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, with rescuers mounting a desperate bid to get food and drinking water to those cut off. Roads, […]

Heavy rains kill 30 in southern India

HYDERABAD, India (AFP) —  least 30 people have been killed because of sudden torrential rains and flooding in southern India, officials said Thursday. In Hyderabad city, home to top IT companies, nine people were killed when a wall collapsed on them and 10 others died from electrocution and drowning, a local official told AFP. Dramatic images showed cars being washed away by swirling waters, bridges submerged by swollen rivers and trucks stranded on roads inundated […]

Hunt for missing rescue team in flood-hit Vietnam, more rain forecast

HANOI, Vietnam (AFP) — A search operation has been launched for a missing rescue team as severe flooding and landslides battered central Vietnam, authorities said on Wednesday, as the country braced for further heavy rain. Close to a million people have been impacted by heavy downpours and rising waters since mid last week, with more than 200,000 homes flooded, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). Thirty-six people are […]

The underground ‘Parthenon’ protecting Tokyo from floods

by Shingo ITO KASUKABE, Japan (AFP) — It has been called Japan’s underground “Parthenon”, a cavernous complex charged with protecting Tokyo and surrounding areas from catastrophic flooding — a risk experts warn is growing as climate change advances. Above ground, there is little to give away the cathedral-like feat of engineering that forms the main reservoir of the Kasukabe flood tank, the largest facility of its kind in the world. The immense structure — deep […]

Floods, rough seas kill 18 in Vietnam as fresh storm on the way

HANOI, Vietnam (AFP) — At least 18 people died and more than a dozen are missing after floods submerged homes in central Vietnam and rough seas capsized fishing boats, authorities said Monday, as another storm threatened fresh downpours. Images on state media showed entire villages under water in Quang Tri and Quang Nam, while murky floodwaters swept through the Imperial City of Hue and the tourist hotspot Hoi An over the weekend. More than a […]

Storms devastate rice paddies in Italy’s ‘golden triangle’

by Francesco Gilioli with Ella Ide in Rome PALESTRO, Italy (AFP) — With a deafening roar, the swollen Sesia river swept down the Alpine valley in northern Italy to engulf the plains below, drowning the country’s so-called “golden triangle” of rice paddies in mud. Storms at the weekend, when the region was lashed by half the yearly average rainfall in just one day, dealt a severe blow to Europe’s biggest rice producer, flooding the marshy […]

Six dead as storm causes floods, landslides in Mexico

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AFP) — At least six people died and thousands were forced from their homes as a tropical storm triggered floods and landslides in southeastern Mexico over the weekend, the authorities said. The victims included two women and two children whose home was buried in a mountainous area in the state of Chiapas, the civil defense said in a statement. Two other people died in Tabasco state, where Tropical Storm Gamma caused severe […]

65 killed, 330,000 left homeless in Niger floods

NIAMEY, Niger (AFP) — Three months of pounding rain in Niger has left 65 people dead and affected nearly 330,000, while several areas of the capital Niamey remain underwater, the government said. The ministry of humanitarian action and disaster management told AFP on Tuesday that as of September 7, 51 people had died when their home collapsed in the floods, and 14 had drowned. The worst-affected regions are Maradi in the central south of the […]

Highest Nile waters for a century swamp Sudan

by Sammy Ketz Agence France-Presse KHARTOUM, Sudan (AFP) — On Sudan’s Tuti Island, where the Blue and White Nile meet, the highest river waters since records began have left people struggling to hold back the rising floods. Wedged between the twin cities of Khartoum and Omdurman, people on Tuti fill bags with sand and small stones in an often futile bid to stop the lapping water from swamping their homes. The world’s longest river is […]